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ANNUAL STATEMENT 






OF THE 



Illinois State Entomologist 



TO THK 



STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



CONCERNING 



Operations Under the Horticultural 
Inspection Act. 



By S. A. FORBES. 
• State Entomol-ogist. 



Deeember 20, 1899. 



AUG 22 W^ 



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Statement of the 

State Entomologist 

CONCERNING OPERATIONS UNDER THE HORTICULTURAL 
INSPECTION ACT, 

BY S. A. FORBES. 



THE WORKINGS OF THE SAN JOSE SCALE LAW. 

The office of state entomologist of Illinois was established by law 
in 1867, and chars^ed with the duty of investigating the entomology 
of the state, and particularly of studying the history of the insects 
injurious to the products of the horticulturists and agriculturists of 
Illinois. The entomologist was also required to prepare a report of his 
researches and discoveries in entomology for publication by the state 
annually, this requirement being later changed to make the report a 
biennial one. Otherwise the duties of the office have remained with- 
out alteration until the passage of an emergency act by the last legis- 
lature, approved April 11, 1899, by which the entomologist was re- 
quired to ''inspect, or to cause to be inspected by his duly appointed 
assistants, once each year all nurseries in the state of Illinois as to 
whether they are infested by dangerous insects or infected with con- 
tagious plant diseases, and if upon such inspection such nurseries ap- 
pear to be free from such dangerous insects or diseases he shall, upon 
the payment of the expenses of inspection as certified by him, give 
to each owner of such nursery or nurseries a certificate to the facts, 
and shall file duplicate certificates with the director of the state agri- 
cultural experiment station and with the secretary of the State Hor- 
ticultural Society, which certificates shall be at all times subject to 
public inspection." It is further made his duty to inspect, or to cause 
to be inspected, any property or place in the state which he shall have 
reason to suppose to be affected by dangerous insects or contagious 
plant diseases, on discovery of which he must give written notice to the 
owner or person in charge and direct him so to treat the infested prop- 
erty as to prevent the conveyance or spread of the injury to other 

Reprinted from the Transactions of the Illinois State Horticultural Society for 
1899. 



premises, this notice amounting to a quarantine of the premises to 
which it applies. In case the owner does not conform to this direction, 
the entomologist must cause the property or premises to be properly 
treated, and the owner is required to pay one-half the cost of treat- 
ment. An exception was made, however, of propert)^ infested by the 
San Jose scale before the year 1899, which must be treated by the 
entomologist without charge to the owner. 

The shipment of uncertified nursery stock into the state is checked 
by a provision of law requiring the transportation agent to hold such 
uncertified stock at the office of delivery until notice has been given to 
the state entomologist and a certificate of inspection issued by him. 

The violation of any part of this law is made a misdemeanor pun- 
ishable by a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred 
dollars, and it is made the duty of the state's attorney to prosecute. 

The entomologist is further required to make a biennial report 
and financial statement to the governor, and an annual statement to 
the State Horticultural Society showing the Illinois nurseries in- 
spected, the number and kinds of certificates issued, the location and 
ownership of the premises disinfected by him or his assistants, the 
kinds and amount of property destroyed under the act, and siich other 
facts concerniug the operations of his office under the act as the 
executive committee of the Horticultural Society may request. It is 
in pursuance of this last requirement that this paper has been pre- 
pared. 

It will be seen that the operations for which the office is re- 
sponsible on which report is to be made to this society are included 
under the two heads of nursery inspection, and the insecticide or 
fungicide treatment of infested or infected property. 

ANNUAL INSPECTION OF NURSERIES. 

Preliminary to the inspection of nurseries it was necessary that I 
should have a complete list of Illinois nurserymen, and this was se- 
cured, with very few deficiencies, ( 3 ) by comparing published trade 
lists of those engaged in the nursery business in Illinois, (3) by send- 
ing to nurserymen in every county where nurseries were known to oc- 
cur a list of the names of nurserymen for that county with a request for 
additions and corrections, and (3) by careful inquiry by inspectors 
at county seats of counties visited by them and of nurserymen whose 
premises were inspected. Additional information was secured from 
postmasters in counties from which no nurseries were given in the 
published lists. 

I have been somewhat embarrassed to determine just what should 
be called a nursery under the law, the dictionary definitions of the 
word being usually very comprehensive and sometimes indefinite. By 
the Standard dictionary a nursery is defined as '"'a place where trees, 



3 

shrubs, flowering plants, etc., are raised for sale or transplanting," 
and by the Century dictionary as "a place where trees are raised from 
seeds or otherwise in order to be transplanted; a place where 
vegetables, flowering plants and trees are raised (as 
by budding or grafting), with a view to sale." Both these definitions 
might easily be made to include plantations of small fruits, green- 
houses, truck gardens, and gardens of flowering plants. Being 
strongly of the opinion, however, that it was not the intention of the 
law that property of this kind should be subject to the annual in- 
spection, I decided to apply the term in the sense in which it is com- 
monly used in business ; that is, to make a distinction between the 
nurseryman, the florist, and the vegetable gardener, while recognizing 
the fact, of course, that some nurserymen sell flowering plants and 
some florists sell nursery stock. In this sense a nursery may be de- 
fined as a place where trees, shrubs, and woody vines are grown for 
sale. This includes all fruits except those growing on herbaceous 
plants, as well as ornamental trees and shrubs. 

For purposes of inspection the state was divided into four dis- 
tricts, one northern, one southern, and two central, in such a manner 
that each could be completely covered by a continuous trip, the 
principal lines of railroads largely determining the boundaries of the 
districts. To each of these divisions of the state an inspector was 
assigned early in July, with instructions to go from place to place 
by the shortest and most convenient lines of travel, not returning to 
the office until his district was fully inspected. I exercised great care 
in the selection of inspectors, since the law requires that they shall be 
competent scientific and practical entomologists, and gives 
to their acts done in pursuance of my instructions the same validity 
as to my own. It was particularly necessary that they should be 
known to me personally as thoroughly reliable men, and it was espe- 
cially desirable that they should have due tact and discretion and a 
considerable experience of average human nature. I was fortunately 
able to provide for this work from my regular corps of assistants, all 
well known to me. Mr.E. C.Green was assigned to the northern district, 
Mr. R. W. Braucher to the north-central, Mr. F. M. McElfresh to the 
south-central, and Mr. H. 0. Woodworth to southern and southeastern 
Illinois. 

The regular work of inspection in the northern district was begun 
July 6 and finished September 14 : that in the north-central was begun 
July 11 and finished September 15 ; and that in southern Illinois was 
begun July 6 and finished September 13. In the south-central division 
the inspection was begun July 26, being delayed by some previous en- 
gagement of Mr. IMcElfresh, and was interrupted by his appointment 
September 4 as instructor in entomology to the Oregon Agricultural 
College. It was resumed in this district September 19 by Mr. Wood- 
worth, after he had finished his own special work, and was completed 



October 9. Eight nurseries of which we had no knowledge at the 
time the regular trips were made were subsequently inspected on 
special trips. The total number of premises inspected to December 
10 was two hundred and seventy-five. Eighteen of these proved, 
however, not to be nurseries, the owners asserting that their stock 
was not intended for sale, and by a change of ownersliip since in- 
spection two of these nurseries have been merged as one. This leaves 
two hundred and fifty-six nurseries in the state, some scarcely worthy 
to be called by that name, but all coming, so far as my information 
goes, under the technical definition given. Seventy-seven of these 
nurseries are in those counties grouped by the State Horticultural 
Society as northern Illinois, seventy-eight in central Illinois, and one 
hundred and one in southern Illinois. 

I append to this statement a list of all the nurseries inspected, 
arranged by counties alphabetically, giving the names and addresses 
of owners, and the dates of certificates where these have been issued. 
Two hundred and nine of the two hundred and fifty-six nurseries in 
the state are now covered by my certificate of inspection, leaving 
forty-seven without certificates. Only one of these forty-seven has 
been refused a certificate, and this a small lot belonging to a dealer 
and containing only left-over stock of preceding years. The remain- 
ing forty-six nurserymen have not as yet paid the expenses of in- 
spection, without which I have no authority of law to issue a certifi- 
cate. It is not to be assumed that all these forty-eight delinquents 
are evading the payment of the inspection expenses or transacting 
business in violation of the law. A small number are undoubtedly so 
doing, but I have reason to suppose that the greater part of them are 
delaying payment because they do no fall business, and consequently 
do not yet need the inspection certificate. Indeed, ten nurserymen 
have explained ihcir delay of payment in this way, and twenty-nine 
other nurseries are described by my inspectors as so small and poor 
that most or all of them probably belong to the same class. iSTineteen 
of the two hundred and nine nurseries finally certified — nearly ten 
per cent of the whole — were in such a condition tbat it was impossible 
to issue certificates of freedom from dangerous insects or plant dis- 
eases upon the face of the inspectors' reports, and in these nineteen 
cases the certificates were withheld until certain prescribed conditions 
had been fulfilled, or until satisfactory assurance was given that 
these requirements would be met. 

Of the two hundred and ten certificates issued, two hundred and 
three were in identical form as follows : 



OFFICE OF THE ILLINOIS STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 

Urban A, III., 

This is to Certify that the growing nursery stock and prem- 
ises of 

situated 

have been inspected according to the provisions of an Act to prevent 
the introduction and spread in Illinois of the San Jose scale and other 
dangerous insects and contagious diseases of fruits, approved and in 
force April 11, 1899, and that no indications have been found of the 
presence of the San Jose scale or other dangerous insect or plant 
disease. 

This certificate is invalid after June 1, 

S. A. Forbes, 
State Entomologist. 

In seven cases the nurseries were in such condition as to require 
a limitation of the certificate, and two such forms of special certifi- 
cates were issued. When certain kinds of stock in a nursery were 
condemned as unfit for the market, a certificate was issued covering 
by name only those kinds to the sale of which no objection was found. 
In a few cases the sale of nursery stock was prohibited until certain 
precautionary and insecticide measures were applied under the super- 
vision of an agent of my office, and a certificate was then issued in the 
following form : 

This is to certify that the nursery stock bearing this certificate 

and grown on the premises of situated 

at has been inspected according to the 

provisions of an Act to prevent the introduction and spread in Illinois 
of the San Jose scale and other dangerous insects and co7itagious 
diseases of fruits, approved and in force April 11, 1899, and that no 
indications have been found of the presence of the San Jose scale 
or other dangerous insects or plant disease. 

This certificate is invalid after June 1, 1899. 

In these cases the nurseryman agreed, in writing, that the cer- 
tificate should be attached only to stock which had received the re- 
quired treatment under the approval of an office assistant. 

It is an evident requirement of .the law that the expenses of 
nursery inspection should be paid by the owners of nurseries, and that 
the certificate should not issue until such payment is made. As this 
interpretation of the act was occasionally questioned by nurserymen, 
I asked the opinion of the attorney general, and was by him confirmed 
in the above understanding. 

As the law does not prescribe any method of distributing costs of 
inspection trips to individuals whose premises are inspected, I was 



6 

obliged to assess these expenses according to my best judgment of 
what was fair and just to all concerned. This was a delicate and 
embarrassing duty which I would gladly have avoided, and to which 
I gave careful personal attention. As the trips of my inspectors were 
not made separately for the purpose of inspecting individual nurseries, 
but were general trips in the course of which a large number were 
visited in succession, I was obliged to adopt some plan of division of 
the total expense of the common trip. After careful study of the 
workings of various possible plans, I finally adopted the following 
method : 

I brought together every two weeks the inspection reports and 
bills of expense of each inspector, and the total cost of inspection for 
this period, including the salary of the inspector, was distributed 
among the nurseries concerned. This was done in such a manner 
that all should share equally the cost of transportation and some other 
general expenses, while the cost of subsistence and the pay of the 
inspector were divided among them in proportion to the time required 
for the inspection of each nursery. 

Thus, if twenty nurseries were examined in these two weeks, 
each was charged with a twentieth part of the mere expense of 
traveling; and if the time spent in the inspection of a given nursery 
was, say, a fortieth of that spent in the inspection of all of them, 
then it was further charged with a fortieth of the salary and the 
cost of subsistence for the two weeks' period. In this way such ex- 
penses as had no relation to the size and condition of the nursery were 
divided equally; such as had some such relation were divided pro- 
portionally; and the total cost of all the trips was fully and exactly 
provided for. 

This scheme worked upon the whole fairly and well, but had one 
minor disadvantage in the fact that it was practically impossible to 
make itemized statements to individual nurserymen, since the items 
would have included a complete exhibit of two weeks' expense of 
travel, but few of which it would have been possible for the individual 
nurseryman in any way to verify. Bills were consequently rendered 
for the total sum due for each inspection, an explanation of the 
method of its determination being also sent if any question were 
raised, and the account was certified by me officially as required by 
law. The total cost of the inspection of the two hundred and ten 
nurseries* certified was $1,206.46, an average of $5.74 per nursery. 
The lowest charge for any inspection was 75 cents, against a small 
nursery near Champaign examined after the close of the general 
season by a special trip from my office, and the largest was $36.90, 
paid by one of the principal nurseries of McLean county. 



♦Reduced to two hundred and nine by the purchase of one nursery by the owner 
of another after the annual inspection was made. 



The total amount of the forty-six unpaid charges for inspection 
is $309.03, or $4.54: per nursery. "^If we take away the ten highest of 
these charges, ranging from $5.43 to $15.71, then the average of the 
remaining thirty-six "is but $3.73. It is doubtless among the ten 
highest above mentioned that actual violations of the nursery in- 
spection law this fall are mainly to be sought. 

While discussing the finances of nursery inspection, I think it due 
to my office, upon which the disagreeable duty of making collections 
from nurserymen has been placed by law, to say that the pay of office 
salaries is in no way dependent upon these receipts, my inspectors 
being paid from the state appropriation so far as receipts from 
nurserymen fall short of expenditures on account of nursery in- 
spection. Any assiduity as a collector which I may have exhibited or 
may in future exhibit is consequently to be attributed to a desire to 
preserve the appropriation made in this interest for the purpose to 
which it was intended that it should apply ; that is, to the disinfection 
and insecticide treatment of orchards and other premises requiring 
that kind of attention, particularly those now infested by the San Jose 
scale. 

Our main dependence for the protection of the horticulture of 
the state against the introduction and general spread of destructive 
insects and fungi is that section of the inspection law forbidding 
transportation companies to deliver uncertified stock. In order to 
insure a general knowledge of this law I distributed early in June, 
through the state railroad and warehouse commission, copies of the 
sections of the law covering this point to all the railroads running in 
or through the state, and to all express companies doing business in 
Illinois. I am unable to say how generally the law has been observed 
by these transportation companies. Only three cases of violation of 
it have come to my knowledge. One of them was in northern Illinois, 
where a Wisconsin nurseryman was prosecuted for distributing un- 
certified nursery stock, plead guilty, and paid the minimum fine. 
The railway agent who released this stock without certificate was of 
course also guilty under the law, but plead ignorance of its provisions. 
In two other cases packages of uncertified nursery stock were noticed 
in transit by rail by correspondents in southern Illinois. The re- 
ceipt of uncertified nursery stock by railway agents has been three 
times reported to my office, all by one railroad having a comparatively 
short line in Illinois. A single case has also been reported by an ex- 
press company, and this from my home office in Champaign. I have 
twice had an assistant in Chicago, who was there on other business, 
make a tour of express and railway freight offices during the fall 
shipping season, but nothing illegal was observed. 



INSECTICIDE TREATMENT OF ORCHARDS. 

As soon after the approval of the law as practicable field work 
was begun from my office for the arrest of the spread of the San Jose 
scale in those parts of the state where it was likely to do most injury. 
The experience of the two preceding years with insecticide sprays, and 
published reports of experiments elsewhere with the fumigation 
method for the San Jose scale had led me to conclude that fumigation 
with hydrocyanic acid gas is the only method now known which gives 
any reasonable promise of the obliteration of the scale in any locality 
where it has become abundant or where it has spread beyond the point 
of its original introduction. I consequently decided to introduce this 
method in our own field operations. As this required, however, a 
large and expensive equipment of canvas tents for the enclosure of 
trees, together with some experience in the management of the ap- 
paratus and the application of the gas which my office force had 
never had, and as, further, the gas treatment can only be applied in 
the open air to the best advantage during the winter season, espe- 
cially if extermination of the scale is the end in view, I decided to 
put a spraying party into the field last spring in the Sparta district, 
where the scale was most abundant and widespread, and was there- 
fore most likely to extend its area rapidly. 

This party, in charge of Mr. E. W. Braucher, was instructed to 
spray such premises as required immediate treatment as a precaution 
against serious increase of injury or extension of the scale to ad- 
jacent property, the object of this preliminary procedure being not 
so much to exterminate the scale even locally as to arrest the extension 
of the injury temporarily until such time as the most thoroughgoing 
possible measures of extermination could be organized. Mr. Braucher 
was instructed, in order to facilitate the thorough application of the 
spray — extremely difficult at best when the trees are in leaf — to have 
infested trees cut back as freely as could be done without injury to the 
tree, and to have any property completely destroyed which was so 
badly infested by the San Jose scale as to be entirely worthless. He 
was instructed to bear in mind the fact that he was dealing in an 
official way with the property of the private citizen, and that he should 
use the utmost tact and discretion, especially where the safety of 
other property demanded the destruction of that infested. In any 
case of serious disagreement between himself and the owner he was 
to refrain from immediate action, if this could be done without 
prejudice to the public interest, and to report the facts and his pro- 
posed procedure to my office. 

Mr. Braucher 's operations in the Sparta neighborhood began 
April 27 and continued until May 16, when he was assigned to other 
service. During this time he sprayed the infested orchards of the 
following owners living near Sparta, in Randolph county: J. M. 



9 

Temple, S. A. Blair, J. W. Kobinson, Mrs. J. B. Hayer, Bert Haver, 
Jefferson Porch, James Wood, Jr., and James Wood, 8r. He de- 
stroyed as worthless the following fruit stock: At Mr. Temple's, 
267 peach-trees; at Mr. Robinson's, 126 peach-trees, 3 apple-trees, and 
6 currant-bushes; at Mrs. Hayer's, 3 apple-trees; at Mr. Porch's, 22 
peach-trees and 1 apple-tree; at James Wood's, Jr., 52 peach-trees 
and 2 apple-trees; and at James Wood's, Sr., 24 peach-trees and 2 
apple-trees. Fourteen hundred feet of osage orange hedge belonging 
to Messrs. Homer and Bert Hayer were also destroyed, partly by 
grubbing out and partly by burning with the aid of kerosene. The 
total property destroyed as worthless from San Jose scale injury thus 
consisted of 491 peach-trees, 11 apple-trees, 6 currant-bushes, and 
something over a quarter of a mile of osage orange hedge. 

In order to make a beginning of fumigation work a suitable equip- 
ment of tents was provided for preliminary operations, and C. W. 
Woodworth, professor of entomology in the University of California, 
a former graduate of the University of Illinois, was engaged, for his 
traveling expenses, merely, to come to Champaign and to take charge 
of the fumigation work until our own force should be competent to 
manage it independently. Mr. Woodworth was selected for this ser- 
vice because I knew that he had made a special study of fumigation 
operations in California and had published an elaborate bulletin upon 
the subject as one of the series of the California experiment station. 
A beginning was made June 5, in an infested lot in Monticello, Piatt 
county. Prof. C. W^. Woodworth was in charge of the party, 
three of my assistants going over with him from Urbana, 
and two laborers being hired at Monticello. At this time of the year 
it was necessary to do the work at night, since exposure of foliage to 
the sun just after fumigation is likely to result in the scorching of 
the leaves. The miscellaneous vegetation upon one town lot was treated 
here with the exception of two or three trees too large for the tents. 
Other deficiencies of the apparatus having been made manifest, work 
at this town was suspended until they could be made good, but by 
that time the season for nursery inspection had arrived, and fumigation 
was suspended to be taken up after the inspection season was past. 

By the fifteenth of October foliage was so far fallen from the 
fruit-trees in southern Hlinois that they could with safety be fumi- 
gated by day, and a party was consequently put into the field under 
the charge of Mr. E. C. Green, with iristrnctions to undertake the 
systematic fumigation of infested premises. Mr. R. W. Braucher was 
attached to the party as an inspector, with instructions to report to 
Mr. Green the exact distribution of the scale at Sparta. The work was 
continued at Sparta and its vicinity, extending to the town of Houston, 
seven miles away, until December 16. At this time it had become 
evident from the number of additional infested premises discovered 
in this region bv Mr. Braucber's insneciions. and the a^eneral dis- 



10 

cribution of the scale in this district on hedges and other roadside 
vegetation, that the complete extermination of the San Jose scale in 
Eandolph county was an enterprise quite beyond our powers with the 
resources at my disposal, even if all the appropriation made by the 
legislature for this general purpose were expended in this one locality. 
A change of program was consequently necessary, and fumigation 
operations were transferred to other points where there was at least 
a fair chance of accomplishing the local obliteration of the scale. 

I have selected first those points where the presence of this insect 
threatens important fruit-growing districts certain to be seriously 
injured in time if an effective check is not put upon the spread of 
this pest. The first of these points fixed upon was Richview, in Wash- 
ington county, and the fumigation party is now at work at thstt place. 

The Sparta district in the meantime has not been wholly 
abandoned, but a spraying party has been organized to continue in- 
secticide work with whale-oil soap, with a view to bringing the out- 
break of the San Jose scale at that point completely under the control 
of the community, and to give to individual fruit growers ample in- 
struction and demonstration in respect to the insecticide methods and 
machinery which they must henceforth use if they wish to protect 
themselves against continuous injury by this insect. 

Mr. Green has thus far fumigated trees and shrubs upon premises 
in Randolph county owned as follows : John Robinson, Alvin Blair, J. 
K.Blair,Sylvester Brown, J. F. Blair, John Davison, Mrs. J H. Moreland, 
James Davison, Charles Lott, Mrs. J. B. Hayer, Bert Hayer, Jefferson 
Porch, William Wilson, T. H. Wilson, James Wood, and Mrs. T. 
Brown. No property has been destroyed by him, although a con- 
siderable number of trees of various kinds have been pointed out to 
the owners of these premises as substantially worthless, and in most 
cases these will be removed and destroyed by the owners themselves. 

In conclusion, I think that 1 may say that the new law is work- 
ing, on the whole, fairly and smoothly and to the decided advantage 
of horticulture in this state. It might, perhaps, be improved by a few 
minor amendments, but upon that point I shall be better able to ex- 
press myself positively after another year's experience of its admin- 
'stration. That it embodies a sound and valuable principle, and 
that it deserves in general the strong and unflinching support of nur- 
serymen and horticulturists alike I have myself no longer any doubt. 
It is to be hoped that it will be unnecessary to call upon the courts for 
its enforcement upon the small number of nurserymen who have 
thus far evaded its requirements. It seems likely that when the fact 
is known that nearly all Illinois nurserymen are obeying it without 
objection the remaining few will fall into line. 

December 20, 1899. 




SEP 6 1910 



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